Monitors hear talk of Hussein's death

April 12, 2003|By James Risen, New York Times News Service.

WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence officials said Friday that they had intercepted communications in which former Iraqi officials said among themselves that they believed Saddam Hussein had been killed in a bombing raid in Baghdad.

But the U.S. officials said they were not certain that Hussein has been killed, citing the lack of physical evidence and the fact that forensic teams had not yet examined the site of an American bombing raid Monday in the Mansur neighborhood of Baghdad. Intelligence reports indicated that Hussein was meeting there with top aides.

The officials who described the communications interception Friday have disputed reports from military officials in the field who said that Hussein was seen Thursday at a mosque in Baghdad that was the site of a firefight later that day.

U.S. officials warned that it is possible that the midlevel Iraqi officials discussing Hussein's death did not know the truth or were passing on disinformation, convinced that the CIA and the National Security Agency, America's eavesdropping agency, would be listening.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Friday that he had not seen enough intelligence information "that would enable me to walk up and say that I have conviction that he's dead."

Even so, American officials said that there were two and possibly more intercepted communications involving different Iraqi leaders discussing Hussein's death. In the conversations, the Iraqis did not specifically refer to the circumstances in which Hussein was supposed to have been killed, the officials said.

One senior intelligence official said that because of the intercepts, officials were "leaning more towards the idea that he is dead."

Military leaders said they had issued playing cards to American troops with the faces of the top wanted Iraqis so they could be on the lookout for them as they patrolled the streets of Iraqi cities.